The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Despite its title, this is pretty much what we expect. It's a big epic with lots (lots!) of battles. Good guys look off into the distance while the wind blows their hair. Woodwinds are prominent on the soundtrack. No one uses contractions. Martin Freeman (the British The Office) plays Bilbo as a finicky straight man, defined only in contrast to the gang of kooks that surround him, a cast director Peter Jackson doesn't guide out of childish caricature. This absence of individuality, this sense of mass, contributes to the feeling of perpetual assault that The Hobbit commits against its audience. Jackson is taking a modest novel and turning it into a three-movie epic. It should feel like a passion project, but it's a bore.
ByNathan Gelgud